Consumers have come to enjoy accessing media content on-demand on non-television devices, such as mobile phones or tablet computers, by streaming media content over the internet or downloading media content to the device. Consumers also enjoy watching television broadcasts, either in real time or through digital video recorders (DVRs) whereby broadcasts can be recorded and viewed at a later time.
Consumers can be provided with access to media content stored on media servers such as DVRs by streaming or downloading media files from the media server to a client device. However, when the client device is located on a different network than the media server, such as when the client device is away from home and is not connected to a home local area network on which the media server is connected, it can be unclear whether the client device is authorized to communicate with and exchange data with the media server on the local area network remotely through the internet or other wide area network. Additionally, it can be unclear whether or not the particular media content requested by a remote client device is authorized to be streamed to or downloaded by the requesting remote client device.